Short Fiction, Anton Chekhov [websites to read books for free .TXT] 📗

Gogol, and he listened, staring at one point, not laughing, but shaking his head and muttering to himself from time to time:

“Anything may happen! Anything may happen!”

If anything ugly or unseemly were depicted in the play he would say as though vindictively, thrusting his finger into the book:

“There it is, lying! That’s what it does, lying does.”

The plays fascinated him, both from their subjects and their moral, and from their skilful, complex construction, and he marvelled at “him,” never calling the author by his name. How neatly he has put it all together.

This time my sister read softly only one page, and could read no more: her voice would not last out. Radish took her hand and, moving his parched lips, said, hardly audibly, in a husky voice:

“The soul of a righteous man is white and smooth as chalk, but the soul of a sinful man is like pumice stone. The soul of a righteous man is like clear oil, but the soul of a sinful man is gas tar. We must labour, we must sorrow, we must suffer sickness,” he went on, “and he who does not labour and sorrow will not gain the Kingdom of Heaven. Woe, woe to them that are well fed, woe to the mighty, woe to the rich, woe to the moneylenders! Not for them is the Kingdom of Heaven. Lice eat grass, rust eats iron⁠ ⁠…”

“And lying the soul,” my sister added laughing. I read the letter through once more. At that moment there walked into the kitchen a soldier who had been bringing us twice a week parcels of tea, French bread and game, which smelt of scent, from some unknown giver. I had no work. I had had to sit at home idle for whole days together, and probably whoever sent us the French bread knew that we were in want.

I heard my sister talking to the soldier and laughing gaily. Then, lying down, she ate some French bread and said to me:

“When you wouldn’t go into the service, but became a house painter, Anyuta Blagovo and I knew from the beginning that you were right, but we were frightened to say so aloud. Tell me what force is it that hinders us from saying what one thinks? Take Anyuta Blagovo now, for instance. She loves you, she adores you, she knows you are right, she loves me too, like a sister, and knows that I am right, and I daresay in her soul envies me, but some force prevents her from coming to see us, she shuns us, she is afraid.”

My sister crossed her arms over her breast, and said passionately:

“How she loves you, if only you knew! She has confessed her love to no one but me, and then very secretly in the dark. She led me into a dark avenue in the garden, and began whispering how precious you were to her. You will see, she’ll never marry, because she loves you. Are you sorry for her?”

“Yes.”

“It’s she who has sent the bread. She is absurd really, what is the use of being so secret? I used to be absurd and foolish, but now I have got away from that and am afraid of nobody. I think and say aloud what I like, and am happy. When I lived at home I hadn’t a conception of happiness, and now I wouldn’t change with a queen.”

Dr. Blagovo arrived. He had taken his doctor’s degree, and was now staying in our town with his father; he was taking a rest, and said that he would soon go back to Petersburg again. He wanted to study antitoxins against typhus, and, I believe, cholera; he wanted to go abroad to perfect his training, and then to be appointed a professor. He had already left the army service, and wore a roomy serge reefer jacket, very full trousers, and magnificent neckties. My sister was in ecstasies over his scarfpin, his studs, and the red silk handkerchief which he wore, I suppose from foppishness, sticking out of the breast pocket of his jacket. One day, having nothing to do, she and I counted up all the suits we remembered him wearing, and came to the conclusion that he had at least ten. It was clear that he still loved my sister as before, but he never once even in jest spoke of taking her with him to Petersburg or abroad, and I could not picture to myself clearly what would become of her if she remained alive and what would become of her child. She did nothing but dream endlessly, and never thought seriously of the future; she said he might go where he liked, and might abandon her even, so long as he was happy himself; that what had been was enough for her.

As a rule he used to sound her very carefully on his arrival, and used to insist on her taking milk and drops in his presence. It was the same on this occasion. He sounded her and made her drink a glass of milk, and there was a smell of creosote in our room afterwards.

“That’s a good girl,” he said, taking the glass from her. “You mustn’t talk too much now; you’ve taken to chattering like a magpie of late. Please hold your tongue.”

She laughed. Then he came into Radish’s room where I was sitting and affectionately slapped me on the shoulder.

“Well, how goes it, old man?” he said, bending down to the invalid.

“Your honour,” said Radish, moving his lips slowly, “your honour, I venture to submit.⁠ ⁠… We all walk in the fear of God, we all have to die.⁠ ⁠… Permit me to tell you the truth.⁠ ⁠… Your honour, the Kingdom of Heaven will not be for you!”

“There’s no help for it,” the doctor said jestingly; “there must be somebody in hell, you know.”

And all at once something happened with my consciousness; as though I were in a dream, as though I were standing on a winter night in the slaughterhouse yard,